Is “Jago Grahak Jago”-a Mockery In Manipur?

Among all living components on this Earth, only we human being are consumer not producer. We human being consumes the products produced by other fellow components on this mother Earth. Though we learnt so many things from our fellow components about consumerism, making so many rules and regulations about consumers right etcbut who is taking care of consumers right in spite of being inked in the Constitution of India which were framed by our Godfathers or copy paste from our colonial masters? Let’s see few incidents taken place in very recent time in our state about the fate and fiasco of consumers. It was brought in media discussion in one of the local TV channel about the Medical clinical result for a particular person from two different clinical labs ,which were totally different as the person reported. The authorities of these two labs claimed that their result were very accurate and correct. Isn’t wonderful that for a particular person ,clinical result given by the two labs (sample taken within a period of half an hour) different? Then result from which lab is to be believed ? Isn’t a serious case in public health? Or shall we remain silent ? Who cares the prices of essential commodities in the Market? Who fixed the prices of these commodities? If Im not mistaken, the prices are being fixed by the traders or individual shopkeepers as they wish. We public also never cared about the MRP written on the packets, whatever the shopkeeper says, we simply pay and never see the date of manufactured, expiry date etc.In very recent time the prices of potatoes, onion ,eggs etc changes every day, why and how nobody cares .It is also reported that actual price of an injection for heart attack is between Rs700 to Rs 900/-but in MRP it is Rs9000/,the cost of medicine of a typhoid patient is about Rs25/in wholesale price but in Hospital it’s Rs53/,the cost of injection after dialysis for a kidney patient is about Rs1800/ but never found in pharmacy or wholesaler, it’s found only with the Doctors though actual price is Rs500/ and many others such are happening in Hospitals. What about the cost of clinical tests like MRI, Ultra sound, CT-scan etc in the clinical labs outside the Hospital? Who is looking after all these malpractices which forfeit the right of consumers?One very interesting incident happened few days ago in Travel /transport sector in Manipur which I never thought of. I went to drop my daughter at JIRI parking who had to travel to Mizoram for her official work .She went to one Travel agency ticket counter for her travel ticket, she took out one five hundred rupee note for the ticket. The person at the counter said, from today fare for Imphal –Jiri is increased to Rs1000/-.My daughter asked ,why? The replied was very simple and casual. The person at the counter said, Local body(Panchayat) election in ASSAM is on 9th December, so many vehicles from Manipur were seized for the election purpose because of which they hired private vehicle in the public interest so they are compelled to hike the fare. Is this reply justified without giving any prior public notification? What could happen to a passenger possessing only Rs1000/- just to reach his home place Jiribam ? He has to travel in fasting all the way. Isn’t again forfeiting the right of the passengers /consumers? My question is ,who is looking after all these affairs? Is it the duty of Govt/public? There may be many areas where anything is done at their wish by any individual/group of people/organization because of which common people are the sole sufferer. So let’s be aware of these and attention of authority is also drawn in public interest so that such malpractices may be curved timely before it’s too late.

Rinku Khumukcham, Editor of Imphal Times has more than 15+ years in the field of Journalism. A seasoned editor, was a former editor of ISTV News. He resides in Keishamthong Elangbam Leikai, with his wife and parents. Rinku can be contacted at [email protected]